defrosting soup stock

Here are some canning jars full of vegan soup stock defrosting on my kitchen counter. I just thought they looked neat.

what i eat for lunch every weekday

When people find out how restricted my diet is (I'm vegetarian and don't eat refined sugar, gluten, eggs or most dairy), they want to know what I *do* eat. And a lot of people are intrigued by the fact that I eat (homemade) soup every day for lunch. So I made this recipe video to show you how I prepare delicious soup every weekday morning for my bag lunch.

You're welcome.

scarlet runners

When I was at my parents' house last night picking some vegetables from Dad's garden, Dad asked if I wanted some beans. He grows scarlet runners in containers along the side of the garage, and the vines climb up the six-foot lengths of twine that he re-strings every year.



Dad climbed a ladder and picked the highest beans while I picked the low ones. Here's my loot, right before I topped and tailed the beans for my supper.

tomatoes and a painted rock

I've been getting fresh, home-grown tomatoes from my Mom and Dad's garden the last couple of weeks. Here are some of them, lined up on my kitchen windowsill to ripen.











The painted rock I bought on my way home from work one night, from some kids who had set up a little storefront on the sidewalk in the neighbourhood where I park my car. This one made me happy. I think I spent $2 on it. Sometimes it felt like I was single-handedly keeping these kids in business, since this was not the only rock I bought over the course of the week that they were there.

yummy cupcakes

@YummyCupcakes is the username of someone I follow on Twitter. This post is not about her. But I liked the title. (And I like her. Worth following.)

This post is actually about cupcakes. Which I bought at a community bake sale on Friday. I didn't really need any cupcakes, but they were so pretty...

I ate them all for supper that night. (The one with the jelly beans, Smarties, sprinkles and rocket candies was the best. Really.)

food prep

Took these pics a few days ago when I was making my lunch in the morning before work. Mom gave me some oranges when I was there Monday night, and I love the way they look, all cut up in my blue flowered bowl.



This is one-half of my daily allotment of work snacks. Not that I am dieting or anything. But I only have so much space to carry stuff (since I walk to work), and cut up apples in glass jars can be really heavy. These apples look totally brown by snack time, but I eat them anyway.

Come to think of it, these wedges look like a little apple army. If I played with my food, I would totally wage apple battles every day during break.

apple fritter

Laurie and I went to the farmer's market at the fairgrounds again this week, and once again we got apple fritters from a Dutch bakery. I didn't take a picture of the apple fritters last week. Here's this week's fritter, half-eaten. I don't know how they make these, but basically they are sinful. That's all I know.

I nearly burned myself last week, the fritters were so fresh out of the deep-fryer. This week's fritters were pleasingly warm. We scarfed them in the parking lot before getting in my car. I somehow got sugar on the crotch of my pants, though. Not quite sure how that happened. I won't tell you the euphamism that Laurie came up with for that, either.

blessings in a salad

I took the above photo this morning when I went into my fridge to get some almond butter to eat with my Extra Strength Advil. I noticed that the pea shoots that I bought yesterday at the farmer's market were all backing away from the top of my fridge, as if repelled by the cold or something. Made me laugh. I know food that's stored right beneath the freezer tends to freeze, for sure.

This morning at church the guest preacher (a member of our congregation who is also a member of parliament) talked about a mission and service trip that some of the congregation took to a First Nations tribe in northern Ontario this past week. We had raised money to buy nets to allow the tribe to feed itself according to its traditional ways, and Glen's story of that visit was very moving and also heart-wrenching. Among other challenges, these First Nations people can't afford the healthier food that can be shipped into their community (a carton of eggs or a bag of potatoes can cost $20), and therefore their diets are often poor, and diabetes runs rampant through the community.



When I got home and started making my lunch, I was overwhelmed with gratitude for the abundance of affordable, healthy food here in southwestern Ontario. The above salad (my lunch) is made with fresh organic spinach and pea pods from organic farms, as well as Ontario carrots and apples. The only thing that was shipped from somewhere else was the celery, and even then it was really inexpensive (although don't remind me how many pesticides were used to create it - I might lose my lunch).

Seriously, though - that is some miracle sitting in my bowl. Awesome.

Really quick, here's how I make homemade dressing for my salads: drizzle olive oil over everything (don't ask me how much), and then splash red wine vinegar on top of that, and sprinkle liberally with salt or Herbamare. I toss salads with my bare hands. True. I usually wash my hands first, if that helps. Besides, I'm usually the only one eating my salads. Anyhow - when everything's all tossed, I test the flavour by popping a leaf or two in my mouth. If the salad tastes like something you'd buy in a nice restaurant, you probably drizzled, splashed and sprinkled right. Otherwise - lather, rinse, repeat. Wait - that's for shampooing. Nevermind.

saturday morning farmer's market finds

So my friend Laurie wanted to go to the farmer's market at the fairgrounds this morning. I'd never been there (I usually go to Trail's End or Covent Garden), and wasn't expecting much. Was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food, and the variety of the stalls. We each had an absolutely decadent Dutch apple fritter from one baker, and left with these sinful butter tarts from another, Canada Comfort Foods. The top tart is Ultimate Nut, the one on the left is Saskatoon Berry, and the one on the right is - wait for it - white chocolate. They have about half a dozen other flavours. Have already eaten the berry one. It was probably the best butter tart I have ever had in my life, apart from my mother's. True. And apparently I am PMS'ing or something, because I have totally chucked my no-wheat diet out the window.



An organic hydroponic place was selling these young pea plants. The greens are supposed to be sweet, and good in salads and sandwiches. I kept picking off little bits of them before I put them in the fridge - they really are yummy. Although I feel kind of weird eating live food - maybe how carnivores might feel if they were forced to bite chunks out of living cows, or something.



Another really cool stall was selling these body care products called From the Meadow. I had bought some of their soaps last summer when Mom, Dad and I took the kids to this bee place near Belmont. Sure enough, From the Meadow uses beeswax from the bee place in their products.

This particular cream is supposed to be a hormone-balancing one. I so need that. I've already rubbed it all over my ovaries, and the smell is wonderful - really subtle, with all-natural essential oils. I already feel calmer, like my Advil had been spiked with a Valium, or something.

Oh - and Laurie and I split a huge bag of Mutsu apples from a local orchard.



Here's my half, soaking in my kitchen sink. All these apples cost me $3. I seriously don't remember the last time I bought apples so cheaply. Yes, I know they are last year's apples. That's okay - so are the ones in the grocery store, that cost me $2/lb.

pantry stew (a cautionary tale)

Doesn't this stew look awesome? Too bad it doesn't taste that awesome. But don't worry - it's not because this recipe is no good. It's because I can't seem to stop burning things, lately. Usually while I'm goofing around on Twitter. I need to make one of those red circles with a line through it and the Twitter bird and a stove in the background. "Don't tweet and cook." Or something.

Anyhow, I made up this recipe on the spur of the moment when I was hungry last night and wanted to cook something with ingredients that I had on hand. Hence the title (pantry stew). You could also call this "too lazy to go to the grocery store" stew.

Actually, the main motivating factor behind making this stew was that I had a bunch of yellow-eyed peas in my fridge that I'd cooked Thursday night in my crockpot, and I was afraid they'd go bad if I didn't MAKE SOMETHING WITH THEM ALMOST IMMEDIATELY. I'm a little averse to the fart-like rotting food smell that too-old cooked beans make, y'know? I also wanted the stew to be somehow tomato-y, but the only kind of tomato ingredient I had on hand was a jar of spaghetti sauce. Done. But I didn't want a stew that TASTED like spaghetti sauce, so I had to think up some weird new flavour twist to explore. More on that later.



So I started by chopping one sweet Vidalia onion. I think you could use any kind of onion - I just happened to have sweet Vidalias on hand - thanks to my Mom, who had two big bags of them, and was giving some away. I think she might have got them from the Shriners. Whatever - you probably don't need to know why I was using a Vidalia.



I also chopped about five or six stalks of celery, but crap, I forgot to photograph that part. To be honest, this entire recipe is kind of light on informative photos. Above is the chopped celery and onion, sauteeing in olive oil in my soup pot.



Once the celery and onion were a little soft, I added the cooked yellow-eyed peas. You could use any kind of cooked beans in this stew - or even a mixture of beans. If you cook your beans from scratch, use one average-sized package of dried beans. Don't ask me how much that is. Just average-sized, okay? If you're using cooked beans, I'm guessing you'd need about three cans of beans for this recipe, although by all means use less if you're not too fond of beans. Wimp.



Next I peeled and chopped about four large carrots, I think. I didn't want to chop them the same shape as the onions and celery - hence the rounds. Whatever. Add the carrots to the pot.



The infamous jar of spaghetti sauce. Add a jar or can of spaghetti sauce to the pot.



Now comes the interesting part. I decided to add a tablespoon of curry powder to the stew.



And a tablespoon of garam masala (which is an Indian spice mixture, and my latest favorite spice).



These tortilla chips have absolutely nothing to do with the recipe. I just had them sitting on my counter while I was cooking, and thought they looked pretty. So I took a picture of them. I think they would totally taste good with this stew, though, come to think of it. Too bad I ate all of them before the stew was done.



Finally I added a bit of water to the stew, until it reached the consistency I wanted. Don't ask me how much water I added - all I can tell you is it looked like this when I was done.



Awesome, eh? The above picture would be the bottom of the soup pot after I spent too much time on Twitter and accidentally burned my stew. Also, I dropped my camera - really hard - rushing to take this photograph. Good thing my second (and current) camera is a shock-resistant one, eh? (Guess how I destroyed my first camera...)

In an effort to salvage things, I dumped the hot (but not totally cooked) stew into another container, and then went to work on the bottom of the soup pot. Fun stuff. Do I know how to rock my Saturday nights, or what?



Was not too impressed to discover (after scrubbing the pot for five minutes) that the pot seemed permanently stained with burnt. Awesome. Like I need to be reminded, every time I make a new recipe, that I totally sucked at cooking one night. (Epilogue: I got the rest of the burnt marks off the pot this morning. Yay.)



Okay, a little tangent: I blame my stove for all my cooking mishaps. Twitter notwithstanding, if my cute little vintage stove actually WORKED PROPERLY, I wouldn't burn so much food. But this charming antique has only two temperatures: lukewarm, and EXTREMELY HOT. And the burners won't work at all unless you turn them to EXTREMELY HOT first, and then turn them down to lukewarm once they start to heat up.

Perhaps I'm a little lazy, but I figure if the burner is already on EXTREMELY HOT, I might as well get some use out of all that power. So I usually let the pot heat up until the food is bubbling, and only then turn it down to lukewarm. Kind of as a time-saving measure, see? (Mom, you don't have to tell me: I've turned into my father, haven't I?)

I had a friend over today, and she wondered why I didn't ask my landlord for a new stove. But see - a new stove wouldn't look this cute, would it? Nevermind.



After I got the pot cleaned up, I finished cooking the (now smoke-flavoured) stew, and added Herbamare to taste. Which was kind of burnt. The taste, that is. Reminded me of nothing more than campfire food, and I haven't been camping since I was a kid. Also, my apartment smelled like cooked BBQ. Which was not so charming, considering that I'm a vegetarian.



The finished stew. Finally ate some for supper tonight. (Oh - and last night's supper? The rest of the bag of Tostitos and a slab of fudge while I cleaned up the stew fiasco. True.) The stew actually didn't taste that bad, if you plugged your nose to avoid the topnote of burnt. The curry and garam masala really give it a lot of depth. Or something. I'm guessing I would totally love this stew if it wasn't burnt. So there you go. You're welcome.

nettle soup

Okay, so today I was at the farmer's market downtown, and Dolway Organic was selling stinging nettles. I'd heard about these things. There were all sorts of signs posted at the Dolway stall, saying don't eat the nettles raw - they're supposed to be prickly, or something.



Good thing they came pre-packaged in plastic. Which is like an organic oxymoron. But anyhow. I bought one bag.



When I got home I totally wanted to cook something with them right away. I pulled out one of my favorite vegetarian cookbooks, The Greens Cookbook by Deborah Madison. I figured if anybody could tell me how to cook nettles, she could.



I didn't find any recipes using nettles, but Madison did share some interesting facts... like how saints use to eat nettle broth for sustenance, or something. And how nettles are supposed to be an amazing green colour when they're cooked. Awesome. I am totally going to eat nettle broth all the time if I ever become a saint.



So basically I was on my own. I started with one leek. Sorry, I didn't take any pictures of the leek before I cut off the tough, dark green parts. Basically you just chop off the leaves, and remove a couple of the outer layers, and then make a slice lengthways through the leek without actually cutting it in half. Leeks tend to be sandy, and you need to wash out all the dirt, like I'm doing above.



When the leek is washed, chop it roughly. Honest, this is me trying not to be compulsive about the widths of the chops.



Heat some olive oil in a soup pot.



Add the chopped leeks, and saute them until soft.



In the meantime, if you're feeling adventurous, you can keep yourself busy with an activity like washing five large potatoes. I do this kind of multi-tasking all the time. Which is probably why so many of my recipes end up burnt.



Because I wanted a good picture for y'all, I kept my eye on those leeks. Right here they are perfectly sauteed. If you still have some other stuff to do (like chopping the potatoes, below), you might want to take the pot off the heat for a little while. Just saying.



My awesomely chopped potatoes.



Add the chopped potatoes to the pot and fill with enough water to cover everything, plus about another inch of water. Or soup stock. You could use soup stock instead of water. I totally forgot about all the soup stock I have frozen in my freezer. Doh.



Okay, now this was totally the most nerve-wracking part of the recipe. Like I did not want to touch those nettles, okay? I just upended the whole bag into the pot. I'm thinking at this point that maybe I've misjudged how many potatoes I should haven't added. (sic)



Luckily the nettle leaves poked down into the pot without any trouble (although I did worry about touching the cooking spatula to anything else, and haplessly transferring raw stinging nettle needles). I think there was something else I wanted to tell you at this point, but I forget what it was.



Here are the cooked potatoes and nettles. (And leeks.) I think everything took about 35 minutes, after the water started boiling. Oh - I remember what I wanted to tell you. I was kind of worried, when I put the nettles in the pot, that I should have removed some of the stems. There were a lot of stems. But I was not interested in putting on some surgical gloves just to pluck off all those leaves... so I left the stems. To be honest, I didn't even wash the nettles. I'm hoping that they washed them at the organic farm. They do that kind of thing, right? I'm sure they would pre-wash things like stinging nettles. Kind of like a public courtesy. Oh well - if they weren't washed, this soup may be a little gritty, that's all. If you're ever foolish enough to actually try making a soup out of LEAVES THAT CAN MAKE YOUR HANDS ALL ITCHY IF YOU ACCIDENTALLY TOUCH THEM, I'll leave that judgement call about washing them up to you.

(In the meantime, I'm feeling pretty sorry for the poor fool who first figured out that you shouldn't eat nettles raw...)



Put the cooked vegetables in a blender with enough water to cover the solids, and puree the soup in small batches. And by small, I mean whatever size you're comfortable splashing all over your kitchen if the blender lid should malfunction.



This is the pureed soup. I'm still waiting for the amazing green colour to materialize.

(True aside: My notebook touch pad is malfunctioning, and when my thumbs pass near it while typing, my cursor tends to randomly fly somewhere else on the screen. Which is not so endearing when it ends up in the middle of the code for the photos, and I need to delete text without screwing up the code. Like right now...)



When you have pureed all the soup, add salt (or Herbamare, my favorite seasoning) to taste. Somebody was asking me what "to taste" meant. (Actually, nobody asked - but I figure some of you might wonder). Basically, it means that you TASTE the soup, and if your first impression is, Wow! I would totally pay $15 for the privilege of eating a tiny bowl of this soup in an overpriced restaurant, then you don't need any more salt. If, on the other hand, your first impression is, Meh, you might want to add a bit more salt. Unless by "meh" you mean, OMG this stuff is WAY too salty, in which case I'm sorry to inform you that you've just wasted a $5 bag of organic nettles.



The finished soup. It was really good, and not at all gritty - so I'm pretty sure they did pre-wash the nettles.



I didn't really mean to post this photo. Most of you probably don't bottle your soup in canning sealers and freeze it in single-size portions for the following week's lunches. I sometimes get carried away with the camera, though. Sorry.

BTW, I made another recipe today, but it didn't turn out nearly as well as the nettle soup recipe. And by "didn't turn out nearly as well," I mean it was basically a total fiasco. Story and photos to come, likely tomorrow. In the meantime, check out these awesome day-old mini cupcakes and fudge that I bought inside Covent Garden this morning. The fudge, BTW, got totally eaten during the fiasco cleanup.



Oops. I guess I forgot to edit a photo of the fudge. Sorry. But those cupcakes are awesome, eh?